


within our hearts

by Val_Creative



Series: IT Movies Fic-Palooza 2019 [15]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Banter, Breakfast, Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Early Mornings, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Humor, Idiots in Love, Internalized Homophobia, LGBTQ Themes, Love Confessions, M/M, Movie: IT Chapter Two (2019), Post-Battle, Restaurants, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Romance, Sex in a Car, Slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 23:16:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20714171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/pseuds/Val_Creative
Summary: After surviving the last battle, Richie confesses to Eddie.





	within our hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Samfan87](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samfan87/gifts).

> Requested by Samfan87 (AO3): "NSFW. Eddie x Richie. They have killed Pennywise and Eddie lived. So cue the Losers having a last good bye after things have settled down. Richie after nearly losing Eddie realizes he wants to confess." THIS ONE TURNED OUT TO BE SO MUCH BETTER THAN I WAS ORIGINALLY PLANNING. WOOP WOOP! I'm so psyched to share this with you all and any comments/thoughts would be so awesome! Thanks!
> 
> ((Want a request for IT? I'm doing 100-1000 word fics of any friendship or romantic ship + any prompt until I feel like quitting. Rules: you need to comment here and provide a friendship or romantic ship + prompt. You need to specify if you want SFW or NSFW (for 18+ readers only). Please check [Full Rules](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1478582). The only requests I'll be looking at is if you ALSO commented about the fic you read as well. It's only fair. You came to this fic to read it and me doing something for you later on is a sweet bonus!))

*

The staff members working at Grandma's Kitchen, on Tuesday morning around 6:15am, are not prepared for what happens.

Six middle-aged adults hurl themselves through the double-glass doors, catcalling and laughing hysterically. Two of them, Richie and Ben, drum their fists purposely on the restaurant's walls. They're oblivious to the frightened, glaring stares and muttering when Eddie flips over a rack of child-sized red balloons one-handed, letting out a torrent of highly exploitative words.

One of the hostesses _eeps!_ as Bill, plastered from head to toe in sewer-filth, politely requests her for the early breakfast menus. But truthfully, all of them were covered. Reeking like death and decay, and appearing so nonchalant about it.

He rejoins his friends laughing and clutching onto each other in the two-sided booth. There's a puddle of slimy, unrecognizable blood left in their wake. Despite the tension, none of the restaurant-patrons call the local law enforcement. An older waitress, experienced with drunkards and crackheads, volunteers to take their table. She'll be tipped 300% before the night is over.

_Loco in Acapulco_ drones overhead from ceiling-speakers. The rowdiness increases, but contained among themselves.

Beverly, crusted with dark, matting blood, nibbles on her cage-free egg white veggie omelette, sharing a milkshake with Ben. She feeds him bits of tomato and peppered egg, keening happily when Ben's hand caresses over the side of her face.

Mike takes his time on his double blueberry pancakes, cutting them into fluffy, delicious triangles, sipping milk. He ducks away from Richie's hand aiming for him, to rub playfully through his hair, smiling so hard it strains his facial muscles. Bill slowly devours a plate of stuffed french toast, watching them, smiling and poking at the cream cheese and glazed, sweet strawberries.

Richie's own plate houses a moat of orange juice around the chicken & bacon cheddar waffles guzzled with maple syrup.

Eddie mutters about how gross Richie is, chewing open-mouthed on a piece of his roasted turkey sandwich. He knees a snickering, smug Richie, who has been purposely kneeing Eddie and lying about it in the booth since they sat down. To his credit, Richie grabs onto Eddie's wrist in time when a pissed-off Eddie brandishes a metal fork at him, completely restraining Eddie.

In retaliation, Eddie leers, dipping his finger in maple syrup. He smudges Richie's eyeglasses.

A hush falls over them. Richie gapes, slipping them off, dropping Eddie's wrist in the process. Ben and Bill simultaneously give each other a knowing look, biting in their lips, snorting behind napkins and the heel of their palms.

Richie motions to Eddie with his ugly, syrup-dripping glasses. He sends him a haughty stare.

"Is that how you wanna play, Kaspbrak?"

"Oh, yeah," Eddie blurts out. He's about as sorry as Greta Keane is philanthropic. "Yeah, it is."

Beverly giggles. Mike shakes his head, looking down, the corners of his mouth upturned.

Richie makes an '_ehh!_' noise after a minute, tossing them aside. "Fair enough," he declares, grabbing onto Eddie again. This time, Richie's cheddar-flecked fingers jerking him in. He holds Eddie's head and smacks his lips wetly, comically loud to his jaw.

An uproar of laughter bursts out. Eddie laughs along with his friends too, pinching Richie's cheeks too-rough, and ends up dumping the breadbox's container of melty butter into his lap. Richie sticks out his hands into the air, groaning and reclining backwards, making Beverly and Mike and Bill almost piss themselves from Richie's defeated expression and the pure chaos.

*

Eventually, they settle.

(Much to the relief of the staff nervously hiding in the back and the oogling, horrified restaurant-goers.)

"Is it just me… or does it seem like everybody's been getting paired off…?" Richie mumbles. He nods and raises his eyebrows pointedly to Ben and Beverly hugging each other's waists, strolling around the empty dish-carts. Bill excuses himself, disappearing in the washroom to comb the stenching, dark gunk out of his bangs. Mike's already waiting for them in the lot.

"Whaddya mean?" Eddie asks.

"C'mon, it's pretty obvious."

Not to Eddie. The most important part is that they're all still standing after the battle.

He shucks on Richie's over-shirt as a jacket, having lost his zip-up. "I didn't know you liked Bev."

Richie cough-chokes on his drink when Eddie says this, already in the process of crawling out of their booth. He spits his drink back into the cup, eyes bugging out behind his wiped-off glasses, still coughing for air. Lemon-lime soda pours down Richie's chin. "The _fuck_?" he yells, offended. "Molly goddamn Ringwald—are you serious right now?"

Eddie shrugs. It didn't seem like the case anyway.

"I love Bev. Don't get me wrong," Richie adds offhandedly. "But I'm not _in _love with her. No. That's fucking weird." He halts, sensing a familiar, awful weight over him. "There's only one person I really liked… I've liked them as long as I can remember."

"… Bill?" Eddie says perplexed, narrowing his eyes.

Richie's face hardens. He marches out of the double-doors, grumbling, shrugging his hands into his pockets. Dawnlight peeks up over the horizon. Eddie follows him out, breathing heavily, his heart pounding erratically in his rib-cage.

"Is it Bill?"

"It's _not Bill_, dude. _Shit_." Richie fumbles for his car-keys, wincing at the feeling of viscous sewer-shit on the insides of his clothes. "Listen, Eddie… I'm not playing 'Guess My Deepest Darkest Secrets' slumber party with you. We almost got eaten alive back there."

"You're the one who brought it up, man."

Supposed they're all meeting back at the inn, for alcoholic shots and goodbyes, before vanishing out of each other's lives. Richie doesn't want that. Not with any of them. But especially not Eddie, whole and alive, vanishing for good. He stuffs his keys back down in his coat-pocket, looking tensely at Eddie. The sharpness in Richie's eyes fades, bit-by-bit, into remorse.

"Oh…" Eddie breathes. He's wondering why the genuine comprehension never hit sooner.

"Yeah, so let's just…"

"Why me?"

Richie loses his cool, throwing his head back and bellowing out a high, uncertain laugh.

"Dude, I wish I fucking _knew_," he admits, smiling humorlessly. "Maybe it's because you're the only one who remembered to get me an ice cream cone. Maybe it was because when you looked at me, it felt like someone noticed I was there." Richie scratches his nails frantically into his stringy, dark mop of hair. Getting more and more jittery. "Or maybe because I knew you didn't like me, so I decided as a kid that masochism was the best course of action—_fuck_—!"

Eddie sucks in a deep, steadying breath. He misses his inhaler already.

"Keep your voice down, Rich."

"_WHY_?! Why the _FUCK_ should I?!" Richie yells at the top of his lungs, growing aggravated and red-faced. "You embarrassed the _fag_—?" His voice breaks, and what sounds like a pained, wringed cry leaves Richie's mouth. Tears forming in his eyes. Richie shut them, teeth exposed and clenching, banging a hand angrily on the red sports-car. "That—that the faggot likes you?"

"Maybe the other faggot likes you back," Eddie says irritably, choking on the words. "Or do you just wanna keep being an asshole?"

He sniffles, wiping under his moistening eyes.

Richie gulps, echoing a fainter sniffle, not knowing immediately what to say for once.

"… … sorry," he murmurs.

"Yeah, me too."

"I almost lost you, Eds. I, I don't know what I was gonna do."

Eddie comes forward, grasping onto Richie's arm and leading him. "Let's get outta here, come on," he says, motioning for Richie's keys. At the questioning, tearful look, Eddie's face softens the wrinkles. "Just trust me."

*

The quarry smells warm, like moss and pollen.

Richie peels off his clothes, dunking himself under, feeling that weight lifting slowly.

Here… _right here_… is where they all felt safest in Derry. Together.

He rinses off the sewage, peering up to Eddie already stripped down and digging a finger in his ear-canal. Richie's lips twitch up. He splashes Eddie, grinning and wrestling him while swimming, listening to Eddie's halfhearted, gurgling protests. Feeling Eddie's hands slipping over him.

Feeling the light and insistent pressure of Eddie's mouth on his.

*

They lay stretched out in Richie's backseat, drying off and cramped.

Reminds him vaguely of the Clubhouse's hammock—the way Eddie basks on the opposite side of Richie, his shoulders against the interior passenger-seat's door. Their legs tangled up and bumping together. He whines out a little, squirming as Richie's fingers massage down on the length of Eddie's calf.

(Except neither of them _fucked_ in the hammock.)

"Sensitive, huh?"

"Mm," Eddie groans, resting a palm to his forehead. Must have been his first orgasm with someone, Richie thinks gleefully. He's only masturbated a bazillion times to imagining a needy, pink-cheeked Eddie getting off with him. Their cocks pushed up, rutting. Richie's hand wrapped around them, pumping lazily, thumbing over Eddie's glistening, spongy cockhead, admiring him.

"Good."

Richie drags Eddie's leg up closer, kissing down.

He's gonna have Eddie Kaspbrak-sized bruises all over his sides and lower back, but—it's worth it. Worth touching the love of his life, over and over, and not having to be panicking to himself for days when Henry Bowers or the fucking sewer clown figured it out.

Eddie smirks, the tip of his tongue sticking between his lips. He presses his foot to Richie's cheek, wiggling his toes.

"Don't make me suck them."

"_Ughhhh_—" Eddie heaves himself back further, nearly gagging. "_Ughh_. Fuck you, Richie. Seriously."

"Get a little bourbon in me first," Richie says cheerfully. "In my mouth, I mean. Not my ass."

*


End file.
